The Global Payments Report 2026 tracks how consumers pay across 42 markets, drawing on a survey of more than 63,000 respondents and transaction data from central banks and card networks. Now in its 11th edition, the report is one of the industry’s most widely cited sources on the state of global payments - relevant to merchants, payment providers, product developers and policy makers alike. This episode explores the report’s headline findings across six themes: the methodology behind the data; the rise of payment apps at the point of sale and what it means for payments infrastructure; wallet fragmentation across global markets; the expansion of domestic payment systems and what that means for established card scheme infrastructure; the competitive dynamics reshaping buy now, pay later; and stablecoins as an emerging layer of B2B and cross-border payments infrastructure.
